System and method for location-based social network feeds

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided for location-based social network feeds. A system identifies a geolocation of a display device. The system identifies a first network feed and a second network feed associated with a user profile associated with the display device. The system identifies a first geolocation associated with the first network feed. The system identifies a second geolocation associated with the second network feed. The system calculates a first proximity between the first geolocation and the geolocation of the display device. The system calculates a second proximity between the second geolocation and the geolocation of the display device. The system outputs, to the display device, the first network feed based on the first proximity and the second network feed based on the second proximity.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication 61/711,840 entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR LOCATION-BASEDSOCIAL OFFERINGS, by Dunn, et al., Oct. 10, 2012, the entire contents ofwhich are incorporated herein by reference.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

LOCATION-BASED SOCIAL NETWORK FEEDS

One or more implementations relate generally to location-based socialnetwork feeds.

BACKGROUND

The subject matter discussed in the background section should not beassumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in thebackground section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the backgroundsection or associated with the subject matter of the background sectionshould not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the priorart. The subject matter in the background section merely representsdifferent approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.

Some enterprises use computers to provide an online social network thatenables real-time collaboration for their users. An online socialnetwork is a digitized representation of human interaction transmittedfor a wider audience. Whereas the audience for a conventionalconversation between two people may be limited to those in close audibleproximity between those two people, a conversation that takes place onan online social network is not bound by such physical constraints. Anyother person or user who is interested in following an onlineconversation may do so. An online social network sends informationproactively via a real-time news stream, or network feed. Users cansubscribe to follow individuals and/or groups to receive broadcastupdates about various events and activities. Users can also postmessages on the profiles of other members of the online social networkto collaborate on various events and activities. In someimplementations, an online social network may allow a user to followdata objects in the form of records such as cases, accounts, oropportunities, in addition to following individual users and groups ofusers. One example of such an online social network is Chatter®,provided by Salesforce.com Inc. of San Francisco, Calif. Such an onlinesocial network can be implemented in various settings, includingenterprises such as business organizations or groups within such anorganization. For instance, Chatter® can be used by employee users of abusiness organization to communicate and collaborate with each other forvarious purposes. Chatter® provides real-time feeds and updates onpeople, groups, documents, files, and other business objects such asreports and dashboards. It should be appreciated, however, that theinvention can be implemented in any kind of online social network.Aspects of the invention may be implemented in connection withadvertising, marketing, matchmaking, on-line dating, e-learning,e-commerce, and so forth. Accordingly, it is desirable to providetechniques that enable a database system providing an online socialnetwork to improve the performance, efficiency, and the ease of use forcollaboration.

BRIEF SUMMARY

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided systems and methodsfor location-based social network feeds. A system identifies ageolocation of a display device. For example, the system identifies thelocation of Nate's mobile phone as New York City. The system identifiesa first network feed and a second network feed associated with a userprofile associated with the display device. For example, the systemidentifies a network feed from Jen, who is a contact in Nate's socialnetwork, and a network feed from Sam, who is also a contact in Nate'ssocial network. The system identifies a first geolocation associatedwith the first network feed. For example, the system identifies Jen'snetwork feed as originating from New York City. The system identifies asecond geolocation associated with the second network feed. For example,the system identifies Sam's network feed as originating from SanFrancisco. The system calculates a first proximity between the firstgeolocation and the geolocation of the display device. For example, thesystem calculates a first proximity of zero miles based on Jen's networkfeed originating from the same street address in New York City whereNate's mobile phone is located. The system calculates a second proximitybetween the second geolocation and the geolocation of the displaydevice. For example, the system calculates a second proximity of 2,500miles based on Sam's network feed originating from a street address inSan Francisco that is 2,500 miles from where Nate's mobile phone islocated. The system outputs, to the display device, the first networkfeed based on the first proximity and the second network feed based onthe second proximity. For example, the system outputs Jen's network feedto Nate's mobile phone with a higher priority for display than Sam'snetwork feed because Nate's mobile phone is in New York City, whereJen's network feed originated, and 2,500 miles from where Sam's networkfeed originated. The system gives greater priority to social networkfeeds that are closer to a user's geographical location, therebyenabling such users to save time and use their social networks moreefficiently by reviewing more geographically relevant network feedsbefore taking the time and the effort to review less geographicallyrelevant network feeds.

While one or more implementations and techniques are described withreference to an embodiment in which location-based social network feedsis implemented in a system having an application server providing afront end for an on-demand database service capable of supportingmultiple tenants, the one or more implementations and techniques are notlimited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers.Embodiments may be practiced using other database architectures, i.e.,ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope ofthe embodiments claimed.

Any of the above embodiments may be used alone or together with oneanother in any combination. The one or more implementations encompassedwithin this specification may also include embodiments that are onlypartially mentioned or alluded to or are not mentioned or alluded to atall in this brief summary or in the abstract. Although variousembodiments may have been motivated by various deficiencies with theprior art, which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places inthe specification, the embodiments do not necessarily address any ofthese deficiencies. In other words, different embodiments may addressdifferent deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Someembodiments may only partially address some deficiencies or just onedeficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and someembodiments may not address any of these deficiencies.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following drawings like reference numbers are used to refer tolike elements. Although the following figures depict various examples,the one or more implementations are not limited to the examples depictedin the figures.

FIG. 1 is an operational flow diagram illustrating a high level overviewof a method for location-based social network feeds in an embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a screen shot illustrating a frame of an example userinterface screen of a display device supporting methods forlocation-based social network feeds;

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an example of an environmentwherein an on-demand database service might be used; and

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of elements of FIG.3 and various possible interconnections between these elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

General Overview

Systems and methods are provided for location-based social networkfeeds.

As used herein, the term multi-tenant database system refers to thosesystems in which various elements of hardware and software of thedatabase system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, agiven application server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows for apotentially much greater number of customers. As used herein, the termquery plan refers to a set of steps used to access information in adatabase system.

Next, mechanisms and methods for location-based social network feedswill be described with reference to example embodiments.

The following detailed description will first describe a method forlocation-based social network feeds.

Next, a screen shot illustrating a frame of an example user interfacescreen is described.

FIG. 1 is an operational flow diagram illustrating a high level overviewof a method 100 for location-based social network feeds in anembodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, a database system can give greaterpriority to social network feeds that are closer to a user'sgeographical location, thereby enabling such users to save time and usetheir social networks more efficiently by reviewing more geographicallyrelevant network feeds before taking the time and the effort to reviewless geographically relevant network feeds.

In block 102, a geolocation is identified for a display device. Forexample and without limitation, this can include the database systemidentifying the location of Nate's mobile phone as New York City, incontrast to the location of the workstation in San Francisco that Natenormally uses. The display device may be a handheld computing device, amobile phone, a laptop computer, a workstation, and/or a similarcommunication device.

In block 104, network feeds are identified for a display device's userprofile. By way of example and without limitation, this can include thedatabase system identifying a network feed from Jen, who is a contact inNate's social network, and a network feed from Sam, who is also acontact in Nate's social network. The user profile may be associatedwith the geolocation of the display device, and the display device maybe associated with a second user profile that is associated with aprevious geolocation of the display device. For example, Nate may havecreated a new user profile for New York City before leaving his officein San Francisco to visit coworkers in New York City, and activated hisNew York City user profile upon the arrival of his flight in New YorkCity. In this example, Nate indicated an interest in “Broadway plays” inhis New York City user profile, such that the database system providesnetwork feeds to Nate about Broadway plays, whereas the database systemdid not previously provide network feeds about San Francisco area playsto Nate's San Francisco user profile. In another example, Nate may haveonly one user profile that the database system references whether Nateis working in San Francisco or visiting New York City. Identifyingnetwork feeds may include identifying feeds based on a user selectionassociated with a user profile and/or a related selection associatedwith the user selection. For example, Nate's profile indicates aninterest in professional sports teams in the San Francisco area, suchthat when Nate arrives in New York City, the database system determineswhether any of these San Francisco area sports teams are playing anygames in New York City. In another example, the database system mayprovide Nate with network feeds about professional sports teams based inNew York City because Nate's profile indicates an interest inprofessional sports teams based in the San Francisco area.

In block 106, a geolocation is identified for a network feed. Inembodiments, this can include the database system identifying Jen'snetwork feed as originating from the New York City office of Nate'semployer.

In block 108, a geolocation is identified for another network feed. Forexample and without limitation, this can include the database systemidentifying Sam's network feed as originating from the San Franciscoheadquarters of Nate's employer, where Nate usually works.

In block 110, a proximity is calculated between a feed's geolocation anda display device's geolocation. By way of example and withoutlimitation, this can include the database system calculating a proximityof zero miles between where Jen's network feed originated in the NewYork City office of Nate's employer and where Nate's mobile phone isalso located.

In block 112, a proximity is calculated between another feed'sgeolocation and a display device's geolocation. In embodiments, this caninclude the database system calculating a proximity of 2,500 milesbetween where Sam's network feed originated in the San Franciscoheadquarters of Nate's employer, where Nate usually works, and whereNate's mobile phone is located in New York City.

In block 114, network feeds are output to a display device based ontheir corresponding proximities. For example and without limitation,this can include the database system outputting Jen's network feed toNate's mobile phone with a higher priority for display than Sam'snetwork feed because Nate's mobile phone is in the New York City officeof Nate's employer, where Jen's network feed originated, and 2,500 milesfrom the San Francisco headquarters of Nate's employer, where Nateusually works and where Sam's network feed originated. In this example,Nate's mobile phone displays Jen's network feed above Sam's networkfeed, even though Jen's network feed is older than Sam's network feed,enabling Nate to review information relevant to the office in which heis currently working before reviewing information relevant to the officein which he usually works. In contrast, a prior art social network mayhave displayed Sam's network feed above Jen's network feed because Sam'snetwork feed is newer than Jen's network feed, even though Sam's networkfeed and the response to Sam's network feed may not be geographicallyrelevant to Nate's current work.

Outputting the network feeds may include displaying the first networkfeed based on a first priority and the second network feed based on asecond priority and a location compensation option. For example, Nate'semployer may have an office in Indianapolis, Ind., where Nate neverworks, and Nate may prefer that network feeds from San Francisco have ahigher priority than network feeds from Indianapolis even when Nate isin New York City, which is geographically closer to Indianapolis than toSan Francisco. Outputting the network feeds may include outputting onlyone of multiple network feeds to the display device. For example,although the database system displays both the high priority networkfeeds and the low priority network feeds via Nate's workstation, thedatabase system only sends the high priority network feeds to Nate'smobile phone. Such priority options may be configurable with differingoptions available for each of a user's different display devices.

In block 116, an electronic discount coupon is output to a displaydevice in response to receiving a network feed associated with ageolocation of the display device from the display device. By way ofexample and without limitation, this can include the database systemoutputting an electronic discount coupon for a specific product toNate's mobile phone when Nate's mobile phone is located at a trade showthat sells the specific product in response to Nate using his mobilephone to post a favorable review of the specific product via a networkfeed. The network feed may have been received prior to the displaydevice's arrival at the geolocation, such as before Nate arrived at thetrade show, or while the display device was at the geolocation, such aswhen Nate is at the trade show. The provider of the electronic discountcoupon may provide the electronic discount coupon independent of thecontent of the network feed, or dependent upon the content of thenetwork feed. For example, the specific product's manufacturer mayprovide the electronic discount coupon to Nate's mobile phone to rewardNate for a favorable review of their product or to get Nate to changehis mind after an unfavorable review of their product.

The database system gives greater priority to social network feeds thatare closer to a user's geographical location, thereby enabling suchusers to save time and use their social networks more efficiently byreviewing more geographically relevant network feeds before taking thetime and the effort to review less geographically relevant networkfeeds. The method 100 may be repeated as desired. Although thisdisclosure describes the blocks 102-116 executing in a particular order,the blocks 102-116 may be executed in a different order.

FIG. 2 is a screen shot illustrating a frame 200 of an example userinterface screen of a display device for location-based social networkfeeds in an embodiment. The frame 200 may include network feeds from afirst geolocation 202 and network feeds from a second geolocation 204. Auser homepage depicted by the frame 200 enables the user to review thenetwork feeds from multiple geolocations based on their associatedpriorities and proximities. Although this simplified example depictsonly one network feed and one response from New York City 202, and onlyone network feed, one response, and one reply to the response from SanFrancisco 204, actual user interface screens may typically displaydozens of network feeds, such that giving greater priority to socialnetwork feeds that are closer to a user's geographical location mayenable such users to save a significant amount of time and use theirsocial networks more efficiently by reviewing more geographicallyrelevant network feeds before taking the time and the effort to scrollthrough dozens of less geographically relevant network feeds. The userhomepage also enables the user to respond to network feeds and togenerate original network feeds for any of the geolocations.Furthermore, the user homepage enables the user to search network feedsfrom the geolocations based on user-specified criteria.

The frame 200 may be part of a larger display screen that includesfields for users to enter commands to create, retrieve, edit, and storerecords. The database system may output a display screen that includesthe frame 200 in response to a search based on search criteria input viaa user interface. Because the frame 200 is a sample, the frame 200 couldvary greatly in appearance. For example, the relative sizes andpositioning of the text is not important to the practice of the presentdisclosure. The frame 200 can be depicted by any visual display, but ispreferably depicted by a computer screen. The frame 200 could also beoutput as a report and printed or saved in electronic format, such asPDF. The frame 200 can be part of a personal computer system and/or anetwork, and operated from system data received by the network, and/oron the Internet. The frame 200 may be navigable by a user. Typically, auser can employ a touch screen input or a mouse input device topoint-and-click to a location on the frame 200 to manage the text on theframe 200, such as a selection that enables a user to edit the text.Alternately, a user can employ directional indicators, or other inputdevices such as a keyboard. The text depicted by the frame 200 is anexample, as the frame 200 may include a much greater amount of text. Theframe 200 may also include fields in which a user can input textualinformation.

System Overview

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an environment 310 wherein anon-demand database service might be used. Environment 310 may includeuser systems 312, network 314, system 316, processor system 317,application platform 318, network interface 320, tenant data storage322, system data storage 324, program code 326, and process space 328.In other embodiments, environment 310 may not have all of the componentslisted and/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to,those listed above.

Environment 310 is an environment in which an on-demand database serviceexists. User system 312 may be any machine or system that is used by auser to access a database user system. For example, any of user systems312 can be a handheld computing device, a mobile phone, a laptopcomputer, a work station, and/or a network of computing devices. Asillustrated in FIG. 3 (and in more detail in FIG. 4) user systems 312might interact via a network 314 with an on-demand database service,which is system 316.

An on-demand database service, such as system 316, is a database systemthat is made available to outside users that do not need to necessarilybe concerned with building and/or maintaining the database system, butinstead may be available for their use when the users need the databasesystem (e.g., on the demand of the users). Some on-demand databaseservices may store information from one or more tenants stored intotables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant database system(MTS). Accordingly, “on-demand database service 316” and “system 316”will be used interchangeably herein. A database image may include one ormore database objects. A relational database management system (RDMS) orthe equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information againstthe database object(s). Application platform 318 may be a framework thatallows the applications of system 316 to run, such as the hardwareand/or software, e.g., the operating system. In an embodiment, on-demanddatabase service 316 may include an application platform 318 thatenables creation, managing and executing one or more applicationsdeveloped by the provider of the on-demand database service, usersaccessing the on-demand database service via user systems 312, or thirdparty application developers accessing the on-demand database servicevia user systems 312.

The users of user systems 312 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 312 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, where a salesperson is using a particular user system 312 tointeract with system 316, that user system has the capacities allottedto that salesperson. However, while an administrator is using that usersystem to interact with system 316, that user system has the capacitiesallotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical rolemodel, users at one permission level may have access to applications,data, and database information accessible by a lower permission leveluser, but may not have access to certain applications, databaseinformation, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level.Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard toaccessing and modifying application and database information, dependingon a user's security or permission level.

Network 314 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 314 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. As the most common type of computer network in currentuse is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol)network, such as the global internetwork of networks often referred toas the “Internet” with a capital “I,” that network will be used in manyof the examples herein. However, it should be understood that thenetworks that the one or more implementations might use are not solimited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol.

User systems 312 might communicate with system 316 using TCP/IP and, ata higher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 312 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages to and from anHTTP server at system 316. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface between system 316 and network 314, but othertechniques might be used as well or instead. In some implementations,the interface between system 316 and network 314 includes load sharingfunctionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balanceloads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality ofservers. At least as for the users that are accessing that server, eachof the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data; however, otheralternative configurations may be used instead.

In one embodiment, system 316, shown in FIG. 3, implements a web-basedcustomer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, in oneembodiment, system 316 includes application servers configured toimplement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, webpages and other information to and fromuser systems 312 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database systemrelated data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system,data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical databaseobject, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of onetenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that onetenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unless such datais expressly shared. In certain embodiments, system 316 implementsapplications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. Forexample, system 316 may provide tenant access to multiple hosted(standard and custom) applications, including a CRM application. User(or third party developer) applications, which may or may not includeCRM, may be supported by the application platform 318, which managescreation, storage of the applications into one or more database objectsand executing of the applications in a virtual machine in the processspace of the system 316.

One arrangement for elements of system 316 is shown in FIG. 3, includinga network interface 320, application platform 318, tenant data storage322 for tenant data 323, system data storage 324 for system data 325accessible to system 316 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 326for implementing various functions of system 316, and a process space328 for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes,such as running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 316 include databaseindexing processes.

Several elements in the system shown in FIG. 3 include conventional,well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example,each user system 312 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. User system 312 typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., abrowsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser,Netscape's Navigator browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browserin the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of user system 312 to access, process and view information, pages andapplications available to it from system 316 over network 314.

Each user system 312 also typically includes one or more user interfacedevices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touchscreen, pen or the like, for interacting with a graphical user interface(GUI) provided by the browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCDdisplay, etc.) in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and otherinformation provided by system 316 or other systems or servers. Forexample, the user interface device can be used to access data andapplications hosted by system 316, and to perform searches on storeddata, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages thatmay be presented to a user. As discussed above, embodiments are suitablefor use with the Internet, which refers to a specific globalinternetwork of networks. However, it should be understood that othernetworks can be used instead of the Internet, such as an intranet, anextranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network,any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one embodiment, each user system 312 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 316(and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) andall of their components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using a central processingunit such as processor system 317, which may include an Intel Pentium®processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units. A computerprogram product embodiment includes a machine-readable storage medium(media) having instructions stored thereon/in which can be used toprogram a computer to perform any of the processes of the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Computer code for operating and configuring system 316 tointercommunicate and to process webpages, applications and other dataand media content as described herein are preferably downloaded andstored on a hard disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof,may also be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory mediumor device as is well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on anymedia capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotatingmedia including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk(DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, andmagnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs),or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructions and/ordata.

Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may betransmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmissionmedium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, as is wellknown, or transmitted over any other conventional network connection asis well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communicationmedium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.) as arewell known. It will also be appreciated that computer code forimplementing embodiments can be implemented in any programming languagethat can be executed on a client system and/or server or server systemsuch as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java™,JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, andmany other programming languages as are well known may be used. (Java™is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

According to one embodiment, each system 316 is configured to providewebpages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client)systems 312 to support the access by user systems 312 as tenants ofsystem 316. As such, system 316 provides security mechanisms to keepeach tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than oneMTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another(e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or theymay be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one ormore servers located in city A and one or more servers located in cityB). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/orphysically connected servers distributed locally or across one or moregeographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant toinclude a computer system, including processing hardware and processspace(s), and an associated storage system and database application(e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. It should also beunderstood that “server system” and “server” are often usedinterchangeably herein. Similarly, the database object described hereincan be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 4 also illustrates environment 310. However, in FIG. 4 elements ofsystem 316 and various interconnections in an embodiment are furtherillustrated. FIG. 4 shows that user system 312 may include processorsystem 312A, memory system 312B, input system 312C, and output system312D. FIG. 4 shows network 314 and system 316. FIG. 4 also shows thatsystem 316 may include tenant data storage 322, tenant data 323, systemdata storage 324, system data 325, User Interface (UI) 430, ApplicationProgram Interface (API) 432, PL/SOQL 434, save routines 436, applicationsetup mechanism 438, applications servers 400 ₁-400 _(N), system processspace 402, tenant process spaces 404, tenant management process space410, tenant storage area 412, user storage 414, and application metadata416. In other embodiments, environment 310 may not have the sameelements as those listed above and/or may have other elements insteadof, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 312, network 314, system 316, tenant data storage 322, andsystem data storage 324 were discussed above in FIG. 3. Regarding usersystem 312, processor system 312A may be any combination of one or moreprocessors. Memory system 312B may be any combination of one or morememory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 312Cmay be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards,mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks.Output system 312D may be any combination of output devices, such as oneor more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown byFIG. 4, system 316 may include a network interface 320 (of FIG. 3)implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 400, an applicationplatform 318, tenant data storage 322, and system data storage 324. Alsoshown is system process space 402, including individual tenant processspaces 404 and a tenant management process space 410. Each applicationserver 400 may be configured to tenant data storage 322 and the tenantdata 323 therein, and system data storage 324 and the system data 325therein to serve requests of user systems 312. The tenant data 323 mightbe divided into individual tenant storage areas 412, which can be eithera physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within eachtenant storage area 412, user storage 414 and application metadata 416might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of auser's most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage414. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is atenant might be stored to tenant storage area 412. A UI 430 provides auser interface and an API 432 provides an application programmerinterface to system 316 resident processes to users and/or developers atuser systems 312. The tenant data and the system data may be stored invarious databases, such as one or more Oracle™ databases.

Application platform 318 includes an application setup mechanism 438that supports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage322 by save routines 436 for execution by subscribers as one or moretenant process spaces 404 managed by tenant management process 410 forexample. Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 34that provides a programming language style interface extension to API432. A detailed description of some PL/SOQL language embodiments isdiscussed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478 entitled, METHOD ANDSYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA A MULTI-TENANTON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, filed Sep. 21, 2007,which is incorporated in its entirety herein for all purposes.Invocations to applications may be detected by one or more systemprocesses, which manages retrieving application metadata 416 for thesubscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as anapplication in a virtual machine.

Each application server 400 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 325 and tenant data 323, viaa different network connection. For example, one application server 400₁ might be coupled via the network 314 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 400 _(N−1) might be coupled via a direct networklink, and another application server 400 _(N) might be coupled by yet adifferent network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and InternetProtocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating betweenapplication servers 400 and the database system. However, it will beapparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols may beused to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain embodiments, each application server 400 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 400. In one embodiment, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 400 and the user systems 312 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 400. In one embodiment, the load balancer uses aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 400. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain embodiments, three consecutive requests from the same user couldhit three different application servers 400, and three requests fromdifferent users could hit the same application server 400. In thismanner, system 316 is multi-tenant, wherein system 316 handles storageof, and access to, different objects, data and applications acrossdisparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each salesperson uses system 316 to manage their salesprocess. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customerfollow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., allapplicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant datastorage 322). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the dataand the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit,calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system havingnothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her salesefforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example,if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internetaccess in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as tothat customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 316 that are allocatedat the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions thatmay be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant specific data, system 316 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharableamong tenants.

In certain embodiments, user systems 312 (which may be client systems)communicate with application servers 400 to request and updatesystem-level and tenant-level data from system 316 that may requiresending one or more queries to tenant data storage 322 and/or systemdata storage 324. System 316 (e.g., an application server 400 in system316) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one ormore SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information.System data storage 324 may generate query plans to access the requesteddata from the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects. It should be understood that “table” and “object” may be usedinterchangeably herein. Each table generally contains one or more datacategories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema.Each row or record of a table contains an instance of data for eachcategory defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database may includea table that describes a customer with fields for basic contactinformation such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc.Another table might describe a purchase order, including fields forinformation such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In somemulti-tenant database systems, standard entity tables might be providedfor use by all tenants. For CRM database applications, such standardentities might include tables for Account, Contact, Lead, andOpportunity data, each containing pre-defined fields. It should beunderstood that the word “entity” may also be used interchangeablyherein with “object” and “table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,039, filedApr. 2, 2004, entitled “Custom Entities and Fields in a Multi-TenantDatabase System”, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference,teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects as well ascustomizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database system. Incertain embodiments, for example, all custom entity data rows are storedin a single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiplelogical tables per organization. It is transparent to customers thattheir multiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table or thattheir data may be stored in the same table as the data of othercustomers.

While one or more implementations have been described by way of exampleand in terms of the specific embodiments, it is to be understood thatone or more implementations are not limited to the disclosedembodiments. To the contrary, it is intended to cover variousmodifications and similar arrangements as would be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Therefore, the scope of the appended claims shouldbe accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all suchmodifications and similar arrangements.

The invention claimed is:
 1. An apparatus for location-based socialnetwork feeds, the apparatus comprising: a processor; and anon-transitory machine readable medium storing one or more sequences ofinstructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processorto: identify a geolocation of a display device; identify a first networkfeed and a second network feed associated with a user profile associatedwith the display device; identify a first geolocation associated withthe first network feed; identify a second geolocation associated withthe second network feed; calculate a first proximity between the firstgeolocation and the geolocation of the display device; calculate asecond proximity between the second geolocation and the geolocation ofthe display device; and output, to the display device, the first networkfeed based on the first proximity and the second network feed based onthe second proximity.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein identifyingthe first network feed and the second network feed comprises identifyingfeeds based on at least one of a user selection associated with the userprofile and a related selection associated with the user selection. 3.The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the user profile is associated withthe geolocation of the display device, and the display device is alsoassociated with a second user profile that is associated with a previousgeolocation of the display device.
 4. The apparatus of claim 1, whereinoutputting, to the display device, the first network feed based on thefirst proximity and the second network feed based on the secondproximity comprises at least one of displaying the first network feedbased on a first priority and the second network feed based on at leastone of a second priority and a location compensation option, andoutputting only one of the first network feed and the second networkfeed to the display device.
 5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein theinstructions, when executed by the processor, will further cause theprocessor to output an electronic discount coupon to the display devicein response to receiving a network feed associated with the geolocationof the display device from the display device.
 6. A non-transitorymachine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructionsfor location-based social network feeds, which instructions, whenexecuted by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors tocarry out the steps of: identifying a geolocation of a display device;identifying a first network feed and a second network feed associatedwith a user profile associated with the display device; identifying afirst geolocation associated with the first network feed; identifying asecond geolocation associated with the second network feed; calculatinga first proximity between the first geolocation and the geolocation ofthe display device; calculating a second proximity between the secondgeolocation and the geolocation of the display device; and outputting,to the display device, the first network feed based on the firstproximity and the second network feed based on the second proximity. 7.The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 6, whereinidentifying the first network feed and the second network feed comprisesidentifying feeds based on at least one of a user selection associatedwith the user profile and a related selection associated with the userselection.
 8. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 6,wherein the user profile is associated with the geolocation of thedisplay device, and the display device is also associated with a seconduser profile that is associated with a previous geolocation of thedisplay device.
 9. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim6, wherein outputting, to the display device, the first network feedbased on the first proximity and the second network feed based on thesecond proximity comprises at least one of displaying the first networkfeed based on a first priority and the second network feed based atleast one of a second priority and a location compensation option, andoutputting only one of the first network feed and the second networkfeed to the display device.
 10. The non-transitory machine-readablemedium of claim 6, further comprising the steps of outputting anelectronic discount coupon to the display device in response toreceiving a network feed associated with the geolocation of the displaydevice from the display device.
 11. A method for location-based socialnetwork feeds, the method comprising: identifying, by a computingdevice, a geolocation of a display device; identifying, by the computingdevice, a first network feed and a second network feed associated with auser profile associated with the display device; identifying, by thecomputing device, a first geolocation associated with the first networkfeed; identifying, by the computing device, a second geolocationassociated with the second network feed; calculating, by the computingdevice, a first proximity between the first geolocation and thegeolocation of the display device; calculating, by the computing device,a second proximity associated with the second geolocation relative tothe geolocation of the display device; and outputting, by the computingdevice to the display device, the first network feed based on the firstproximity and the second network feed based on the second proximity. 12.The method of claim 11, wherein identifying the first network feed andthe second network feed comprises identifying feeds based on at leastone of a user selection associated with the user profile and a relatedselection associated with the user selection.
 13. The method of claim11, wherein the user profile is associated with the geolocation of thedisplay device, and the display device is also associated with a seconduser profile that is associated with a previous geolocation of thedisplay device.
 14. The method of claim 11, wherein outputting, to thedisplay device, the first network feed based on the first proximity andthe second network feed based on the second proximity comprises at leastone of displaying the first network feed based on a first priority andthe second network feed based on at least one of a second priority and alocation compensation option, and outputting only one of the firstnetwork feed and the second network feed to the display device.
 15. Themethod of claim 11, the method further comprising outputting anelectronic discount coupon, by the computing device, to the displaydevice in response to receiving a network feed associated with thegeolocation of the display device from the display device.
 16. A systemfor location-based social network feeds, the system comprising: aprocessor-based application stored on a non-transitory machine-readablemedium, executed on a computer, and configured to: identify ageolocation of a display device; identify a first network feed and asecond network feed associated with a user profile associated with thedisplay device; identify a first geolocation associated with the firstnetwork feed; identify a second geolocation associated with the secondnetwork feed; calculate a first proximity between the first geolocationand the geolocation of the display device; calculate a second proximityassociated with the second geolocation relative to the geolocation ofthe display device; and output, to the display device, the first networkfeed based on the first proximity and the second network feed based onthe second proximity.
 17. The system of claim 16, wherein identifyingthe first network feed and the second network feed comprises identifyingfeeds based on at least one of a user selection associated with the userprofile and a related selection associated with the user selection. 18.The system of claim 16, wherein the user profile is associated with thegeolocation of the display device, and the display device is alsoassociated with a second user profile that is associated with a previousgeolocation of the display device.
 19. The system of claim 16, whereinoutputting, to the display device, the first network feed based on thefirst proximity and the second network feed based on the secondproximity comprises at least one of displaying the first network feedbased on a first priority and the second network feed based on at leastone of a second priority and a location compensation option, andoutputting only one of the first network feed and the second networkfeed to the display device.
 20. The system of claim 16, theprocessor-based application further configured to output an electronicdiscount coupon to the display device in response to receiving a networkfeed associated with the geolocation of the display device from thedisplay device.